Hot Sun, Hard Work
by kojum
Summary: The wasteland's full of jobs to do and people to do them, from soldiers to raiders, from merchants to thieves. Question is, what do the people think about what they do to make a living? / Interviews with wastelanders, where they "talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do." Based off of Working by Studs Terkel.
1. Foreward

_Foreward_

When I first told my editor at the _California Sentinel_ that I wanted to put together a book of interviews with people about their jobs, she smiled, said it sounded like a great idea, and offered to put me in touch with a friend she had at the only publishing house in the NCR. We talked at length about how I would go about putting together the book, how I would find, record, and transcribe the interviews, how it would ever make it into other people's hands. She gave me her blessing and the _Sentinel_'s sponsorship to go out and start on it a month later—a significant expense for what was then a small, local paper. I promised I would make good use of every cap.

Since that talk eight years ago, we've changed presidents, officially expanded out into the Mojave, and the _Sentinel_'s now distributed all across the NCR. There's a war raging for Hoover Dam, its death toll climbing higher with each day. A thousand jobs seem to have cropped up overnight, most of them involving a gun in one way or another. And in the middle of all this upheaval, I finished my interviews, typed them up, and delivered a copy of the manuscript to my editor at Angel House.

Throughout those years that I traveled all around the Core Region and Mojave, I often found myself wondering why. Why did I spend all this time chasing down word-of-mouth suggestions and recommendations? Why did I spend countless nights walking into bars and striking up conversations with total strangers? Why did I spend every bit of money I had travelling thousands of miles across scorched earth and crumbling roads? What was it all for? Most of the people I came across over the course of my journey asked me the same questions, from soldiers to casino dealers to raiders. "Why run all around just to _talk_ to people?" one soldier asked me, brow furrowed. "Just doesn't seem worth it."

My answers varied over the course of my travels. At first, I was almost overly idealistic—I wanted to make the ordinary into history, preserve the name of "the working folks." Then I wanted to make my _own_ name known for being one of the prestigious few who had their name on an honest-to-God book. Then it was a mixture of both. Some people accepted my explanations, some didn't; some thought I was "some blithering idiot from back west who thinks the world's some goddamn fairy tale." (The bartender who said as much was tipped rather heavily by everyone at the bar that night, myself included.) But it wasn't until I started putting together my manuscript that I figured out the best reason behind why I'd spent nearly a decade of my life putting this book together.

Early on in my travels, I interviewed two teenagers, nineteen and seventeen, who were working at a local library in a small town up in the northern parts of the NCR. It was right after President Kimball sent troops in to occupy Hoover Dam, and three years before the war with the Legion started in earnest. I spent a good hour or two just talking to the two of them, asking them about their families and childhoods. The nineteen year old had dropped out of the local school years ago; the seventeen year old was just starting his final year. Both of them had been working at the library for a few years. Eventually I got around to asking them: Why? Library work didn't seem particularly exciting, and most of the families seemed to be involved in either trading or agriculture.

"Well...who else is gonna take care of the books?" the older one said. "It might not look interesting, and a lot of days it isn't, but it's not like anyone else is gonna step in and keep these books from falling apart."

"We have the largest library for fifty miles," the seventeen year old bragged. "And it's mostly because of us, and Jeffrey"—their overseer, a quiet man in his thirties. "Old romance novels, history textbooks, instruction manuals. There's a folder with almost a hundred handwritten recipes. It would've been tinder had Jeffrey not bought it off a merchant that came through here a few months ago."

I asked them about their pay, and they just turned to each other and laughed.

"Oh, the pay's shit," the nineteen year old said, smiling. "But it's not about the money. I do it because I like reading, and I like helping others read. I do it because I like knowing that at least a little bit of the old world made it into this one."

"Something like that," her coworker said. "I do it for the job, not the money. I want this place to last for years to come. It survived the world getting blown up—who's to say it won't last forever?"

This passion and the hope for the future that usually stemmed from it was repeated time and time again, in jobs from the ragged Pacific coastline to the edge of the Colorado. It wasn't universal, by any means, but where it showed up, it showed up strong and bright. The soldier who did his morning PT drills with a smile on his face; the casino dealer who wore his "fastest cards in the east" title with pride; the travelling saleswoman who sometimes worked long past sunset to deliver her goods along roads she'd more or less forged herself. Thankless jobs with long hours and numerous dangers, and yet the people that did them woke up each morning looking forward to the day.

Exhaustion is a given in our lives. There wasn't a soul I talked to who wasn't tired of something—bad sales, aggressive raiders, the war. A lot of people were unhappy in one way or another; a few of them have likely died since I started working on this book. (I hope they passed peacefully, surrounded by good people.) To many, their jobs were little more than ways to get caps in their pockets and food on the table, hours out of their day that they thought of as "little more than a waking sleep, worthless as taking a piss," as one MP described it.

But in every interview, without fail, there were flashes of hope. Whether it was the prostitute's hope for an easier future with clean water and equal work, or the brahmin rancher's hope that she'd have the chance to go into town and spend a few hours at the bar, everyone looked forward to something. Better land. Working factories. Peace. Power. A fun night. To make a mark on the world, in whatever way they can. The amount of hope that people have, even people who have spent years grinding away at jobs they don't care about in the slightest, is overwhelming. Humbling.

When I typed these stories up, I realized that the reason I spent years interviewing anyone who would talk to me was because that hope was absolutely intoxicating. My own hope about the future seemed to be just about gone when I started my journey; by the time I finished, I was brimming with it, about everything. The world looked like a much brighter place to be in.

I explained all of this to my editor at Angel House, and, a few months later, I explained it again to my former editor at the _Sentinel_. And after they read the manuscripts, the hundreds of pages of people talking about their lives and jobs and thoughts, they both told me the same thing:

"I never knew people had so much to look forward to."

It's a thought I've carried with me through my travels, hidden or not, and it's a thought I'll carry with me until I die. The world's burnt down, but we've done a hell of a job building it up again. There's a lot to be hopeful for.

—_J. Feron, 2282_


	2. Caps and Dollars

_Caps and Dollars_

* * *

"At the end of the day, it's a dog-eat-dog world. You either make the sale, or you don't. If you do, congratulations, you get to eat tonight. If you don't? Well. Better hope you have some Cram left over. The rush of it all is exciting—at least until you get home to an empty table and a grumbling stomach. Keeps you on your toes."


	3. 1: Charlize Hull (Mechanic, Store Owner)

_Charlize Hull  
Mechanic/General Store Owner_

_Charlize, 32, lives at the junction of I-15 and Highway 161, a crossroads between Primm, Goodsprings, and Sloan. She and her wife Jamie, 35, run a small mechanic shop with a general store out of an old skydiving shack. "Though we're more of a 'you want it, we'll find it' store, at this point," she says with a grin. She and Jamie are sitting in front of the campfire outside their trailers down the road, Nuka-Colas in hand and the sunset painting everything a pleasant orange._

I met Jamie, oh, about...what is it, fifteen years ago, now? Back when I was seventeen, I was dumb enough to believe all that stuff the NCR sells to its kids about civic duty and whatnot. Enlisted soon as I got through with high school. Figured, hell, what else was I gonna do? And I figured I "owed the country" or some nonsense. What I thought I owed them, I don't know, but I had that idea stuck in my head all through my last year of school.

The place I was assigned to was horrible, but the work actually wasn't too bad—got stuck out in some backwater nowhere base, where the Army ships all its junked big equipment to be fixed or scrapped. Mostly trucks that someone somewhere's under the impression we can get running or salvage something from, but we did get one or two vertibirds while I was there. Things were massive, beautiful. But it was mostly just busy work—stripping cars for salvage, trying to get some of the better-looking trucks to actually run. Pointless, but I learned a helluva lot about machines and repairs, so I can't say it was all bad.

Anyway, Jamie had set up a repair shop not too far out from the base. Kinda similar to what we've got here, yeah? _[Jamie nods.]_ Part repair shop, part general store and bar, part "there's no other place you're gonna go to blow your caps, so stop dawdling and come in already." It was a nice little place and the closest thing to the outside world most of us soldiers were gonna get that far out from any town or settlement. Most folks spent a good part of their weekends out there, NCOs and COs and enlisted alike. I remember I was practically sneaking away every free second I got to go see her. I think eventually I actually worked up the nerve to say more than "hey," and stuff started rolling from there. We got to _really_ know each other when she started paying me under the table to help her repair a bunch of equipment she had stowed in some shed behind her house. _[Laughs.]_ Good days.

After a few years, my contract with the Army ran out, and I sure as hell wasn't going to stay on another two or three years. It was interesting work, sure, but I learned all I was gonna learn after about a year and a half, and anyway, twelve hour days of taking apart rusty old cars that could blow up if you look at 'em wrong isn't my idea of a good job. Pay was shit, too, and I was through with all that nationalism nonsense, so there wasn't any reason to stay on. I packed up my bag, walked fifteen minutes, and moved in with Jamie the day I got my discharge papers formalized.

For a while I helped her run the shop, and that was nice. Got to see the friends I made at the base on a regular basis, and most of my days were spent tinkering around with equipment so we could sell or barter it for supplies and food. Eventually, though, NCR closed down the base. Apparently it was costing the Army too much money for what it was producing. Which I say is bullshit, 'cause I know for a fact we were cranking out more helpful salvage and more of it than any other place in the NCR, but hey, what're you gonna do? Army politics and all that nonsense. So Jamie and I packed up shop, piled everything onto our backs and the brahmin, and decided to head out east, see if we could find something interesting out here.

So we've been out this way, oh, about ten years now. We didn't settle here right away—first landed in a small town called Nipton, right by the border. I think the main reason we stopped there was because we were getting tired of walking and it looked like there were a fair number of people passing through on a regular basis. Sure wasn't 'cause we liked the town. Place was too quiet, almost...dead. People in town barely talked to one another, and there were only maybe five or ten of 'em that stayed any length of time. But it was too close to the Outpost—anyone that needed supplies or repair were already taken care of by the time they got to Nipton. We didn't stay long there, maybe a month or two. Personally, I was glad to leave. Place gave me the creeps.

Then we bounced around a few more places. Novac was alright, but too slow, and there was already someone set up there that kept giving us the evil eye whenever we passed him. Then Nelson, but it wasn't much better. After maybe a year we ended up here at this skydiving shack, and we've been here ever since. Not many other people are willing to try and scrounge together somewhere to live, either, which cuts out competition. All in all, it's nice—good, secure, and we see enough traffic to keep us afloat.

...Well, not so much nowadays. Seems like the traders and travelers coming through are getting fewer by the week...but it'll probably pick up once the summer's over. No one likes to travel in the heat.

I figure we've finally found the perfect place, where we're far enough from everything to turn a profit. Some of the more seasoned caravans just walk on by, because they know how to make a bottle of water last a lot longer than it should, but most of the less-experienced travelers stop in. We sell a lot of supplies and do a good number of repairs. You wouldn't believe the condition some of these tourists let their guns get into. Can't say I don't get a good laugh out of selling them one of our fixed up pistols because there's no way I could fix their hunks of scrap metal, but still. Mojave ain't a good place to be walking around with a crap gun. Lot of those people were lucky they didn't run into trouble—some of the stories I've heard...

I'd say the toughest part of living out here is getting supplies. We're nearly four hours out from Primm, and neither of us feel comfortable taking the brahmin out on our own to go pick stuff up. But without water and food and such, we'd lose most of our sales. And starve. We make a supply run about once a week or so, and it's hell. I hate it, especially in the summer. Now that it's hot, we have to drag ourselves out of bed early, get all covered up, and set off down the road well before the sun comes up, and then we usually get stuck in Primm until it cools down after sunset. The Long 15's okay, but it's not a road I want to be walking on after it's dark, and Primm's not near interesting enough to stay there all day anyway, even with the casino. We mostly just end up sitting in the shade at a burned out gas station for hours, arguing over card games. Boring, and we lose a whole day's worth of trade—though recently we've been taking the leftover supplies and selling them on our way to town.

We've been trying to cut down on supply runs by just buying supplies from some of the traders that pass through, but they're hell to bargain with. Crazy prices. I mean, yeah, I don't mind taking some stuff off their hands if we're only low in a few things—Nuka, or Cram—but trying to buy in bulk from them? Highway robbery. _[Laughs.]_ Pun intended.

We've been trying to work out a good deal with one of the old caravaneers that passes through here like clockwork, see if he could pick up a round of supplies and drop them off here and we pay him for it, but the price is just _that much_ out of our range. We're not poor, but we're not raking in the caps. We have to eat too, but it's getting harder and harder to make the trip to Primm. It's tough. That's our biggest worry out here—not Vipers or nightstalkers or crazy people running through and shooting us up, but getting supplies.

But it could be a lot worse, and we're happy. That's all I can really ask for, I think.

_Charlize looks over at Jamie, and the two smile at each other. "To you, beautiful," Jamie says, holding her half-empty soda up for a toast. Charlize clinks her bottle against her wife's and they laugh._


	4. 2: Adrian Ubina (Buyer)

_Adrian Ubina  
Buyer for Strip Travellers_

Me? I live in Westside. As soon as I get done delivering a case of special colored Nuka to a client at the Ultra-Luxe, I drag my ass home and hope I don't get shot before I make it to my mattress. It's—honestly, it's bullshit. I serve people living in the lap of luxury, and most days I come home to find some drunk passed out on my bed. It's ridiculous.

_At 25, Adrian Ubina has built up a business as a "'procurement specialist'—which is just fancy Strip talk for a walking, talking shopping cart that brings stuff right to people's hotel rooms." Ubina is originally from New Reno, but moved to the Mojave soon after the New Vegas Treaty was signed to "see what all the fuss was about down south."_

I hitched my way down to Vegas with an old caravaneer and her guards when I was seventeen. Luckiest thing to happen to me—some bright-eyed kid wandering down 80 with not much more than shitty old gun and a backpack full of food and water? There's no way I wouldn't have run into trouble. Luckily, I caught up to this little caravan outfit not too far from Reno. Bought a beer and got to talking with the caravaneer herself, and she offered me a spot as a "junior guard." Looking back on it, I'm pretty sure she was just taking pity on some teenager that she didn't want to see get smeared up and down 95, because I never so much as drew my gun. If I ever see her again, I'm gonna buy her a bottle of whiskey or something to give her a proper thanks.

My luck ran out when I actually got to Vegas, though, funny enough. Place was all lit up, though I don't think I was as dazzled by it as a lot of the tourists. Grew up in Reno, so, y'know, I like to think I'm used to light shows. It was still impressive, though. Must take a hell of a lot of electricity to run all that, but hey, NCR's got that dam up and running, right? Anyway, place looked nice on the outside, but I got stranded out in Freeside the first night I was in town. "You need a passport," all that shit. Might've tried making a run for it, but I was exhausted. Good thing I didn't—I've seen what those robots do to people.

So I stuck around in Freeside for a while. Place was on its way to becoming a shithole then, too. Took a while, but I managed to earn some caps doing odds and ends for people—some repair work, worked as a bouncer at the Silver Rush back when it was a casino—and managed to get myself a decent suit and a passport. Vegas is nicer on the inside, obviously, but if you don't have money to spare, it's a boring place to get ripped off for drinks.

Bounced around the casinos for a day or two before I came across this guy at the bar in the Tops. Big guy, looked pretty flashy—rings and stuff, a big gold cross, y'know, stuff you don't see on anyone but people looking to show off their money. Somehow, we got to talking, and my little stint with the caravaneer came up—I didn't mention that I was a "junior guard," figured the guy would drop me like yesterday's trash—and he goes, "Oh, so you're good with a gun? Know your way around the area?" What was I gonna say? "Nah, I'm so new I don't know where to go to take a piss"? I told him yeah, I'd been around the area for a while, and he offers me some caps to go pick up something in Freeside. Some fancy something or other he'd ordered at a shop.

Now, I'm no one's errand boy—or, well, I wasn't—but he offered me two hundred caps to go pick up this package and drop it off. Two hundred caps for a fifteen minute walk! I was still a dumb greenhorn, so I didn't ask, y'know, is it chems, is it a bomb. I just said, "Yeah, I'll go." Still had a little bit of luck going for me, though, since the whole thing turned out to be just as boring as I expected. I go, pick up a box, deliver it, and bam, two hundred caps in my pocket. Easy money.

And so I figured, "hey, maybe I could make this into a bit of a business." You know these Strip people, they don't like getting their hands dirty. Only reason they'll set foot in Freeside is if they're on their way in or out of Vegas. But they still want all the local goods, y'know, they want to feel like they're "locals" or whatever. _But_ they only want the right local sort of stuff, stuff that'll show everyone how rich and travelled they are. None of those squirrel sticks. And here I am, and I'm not exactly a local, but I can learn fast enough, and I'm okay with a gun—well, I am _now,_ I was crap at it until a ghoul sat me down and showed me how to hold one so I wouldn't break my hand when I pulled the trigger—and hey, why not? I could be a middleman. A buyer. Go out, pick stuff up, buy stuff they might like, come back and make deliveries and sales pitches, get paid. Just until I got on my feet. Easy money.

_[Laughs.]_ Yeah. That was seven years ago and I'm still doing it. "Just until I got on my feet," yeah...

But I do like the job. I get to get out and see the world—I check out caravans and see what they've got, travel around and hit up other places like Novac and the 188. Some people just want more chems than they can get on the Strip or want them without actually having to show their face to buy them, but a lot of the clients I have are looking for exciting stuff, stuff they can take home and show off or give as "authentic New Vegas souvenirs." Sometimes they're looking for specific pieces, sometimes they don't have a clue, so I usually need to have a pretty good selection of items for them to choose from. Every week or every other week I usually take a few days off to go make my runs. Though it's more like every other week, now that they've got part of 15 shut down. Makes the trip a lot longer, but I guess it's better than getting mauled by deathclaws.

I suppose I should probably hire someone to actually do the legwork of going from place to place to shop around, but I don't make a lot of money, and anyway the legwork's the part of the job I enjoy the most. I've always liked travelling. When I was a kid I thought I was going to be running my own caravan by now, actually. I figure this is—well, maybe not the next best thing, but a step or two down. Not too bad. I'd be lying if I said there aren't days where I want to break off, get another brahmin, and sign up with the Crimson Caravan, but I've got a pretty good lot here, too. Better than a lot of the people I see on my way to and from the Strip, anyway.

A lot of my clients I meet by just talking to them at the bar. I mostly hit up the Tops—good bar, good casino, that stage they've got, it's a flytrap for people that want to show off their money but can't afford to get into the Ultra-Luxe. I do hit up the Luxe, too, though it's a crapshoot if I'm going to get in, and even if I do a lot of the people that go there just turn up their noses and act like we don't even speak the same language. Vault 21's not exactly the sort of place where people who want a buyer go. I like kicking back there from time to time, though—it's nice, laid back. Just not rich. Gomorrah...good money, but skeezy. All the clients that've screwed me over I've met at Gomorrah. The place is just bad news. I mean, all the casinos have their sketchy people, but Gomorrah...I don't know. I think it's the lighting. Place feels like a damn cave, even on the casino floor.

Regardless of the casino, though, the process is basically the same. Mostly you just have to go up and talk to people, get them comfortable with you. People don't trust you when you're just having a conversation, they're definitely not going to trust you with their goods. It's all about the relationship you have with people. If you're not a people person, there's no way you could do this. You've got to get friendly with them, booze and shmooze, get them laughing and talking about themselves—their money, what they've got going on back home, why they're here. What they like about Vegas, what they don't like about everywhere else outside of Vegas. Then you mention, "Oh, yeah, I can get why you don't like Freeside. Place is dangerous if you don't know the right people. But, y'know, _I_ know the right people, and let me tell you what you're missing..." You go in for the kill. If you set yourself up right, it's easy money.

Do I like the people? Well. Some of them I like quite a bit. There's some people that are smart, funny, that aren't jerks with their money. They don't think it makes them fundamentally better than you or me. I can sit down with them, have a few beers, and really have a good conversation. Those are the clients I like best. Others...they really like to show off with their money, think it makes them so damn special that they've got a thousand caps they can piss away without too much worry. They talk about everyone else outside of Vegas like they're pieces of shit, me included. I try not to hang around them too much before they start thinking I'm their damn slave. Those people I don't like at all, no.

I don't think this is a big business. Honestly, most of my clients don't stay long anyway. There's a few who actually live on the Strip proper, but most people are just here for a few weeks. My client turnover's pretty horrific, but that's how it goes. This place runs on tourists, and tourists don't stick around. They do tip well, though, at least most of them. There's fewer crap-outs than you'd think. Most people like paying their bill, I think, so long as it's in their sweet spot, because then they get the satisfaction of knowing they have the money to pay their debts and get nice things without actually spending a lot of money. Or what they think isn't a lot of money. These people...

But really, there's no one else doing what I do. That's part of the reason I feel okay talking to you about all this, aside from the fact that most of my clients aren't permanent. I'm not worried about competition. It's not that other people couldn't do it, but I'm pretty sure people don't even know about it. Most people, I tell them I'm a buyer for people on the Strip, they go, "What? What the hell's that?" When I explain it to them, they go, "That's dumb, who would pay you to do that?" I mean, they usually phrase it a little nicer, but that's the gist of it. I don't blame them—if someone came up to me and told me the same thing, I'd go, "Well, what the hell use is that?" It's not prestigious work, not at all. But the way I see it, yeah, my job isn't exactly necessary, but it's not necessary to go and blow money on card games, either. I'm just playing to the market.

Besides that, it's hard work. It's like running a caravan except you don't get the same sort of respect. Most of my clients don't even know my real name—I go by another name when I'm introducing myself to Strip folks. Adrian Ubina just doesn't have the same sort of ring to it, and here, the ring is everything. Your image has to be top notch, absolutely polished. You've gotta look perfect, like everything else, or people just spit on you and laugh. It's rough.

One time, a few years ago when I was still sorta new to the whole business, I woke up a little late. I was in a rush, so I didn't do my whole morning routine—I have all these things I do in the morning, so I look as good as I can. You don't know how many clients I've gotten because someone likes my hair. _[Laughs.]_ So anyway, instead of doing my whole morning routine I just brushed my hair back, threw on one of my suits that wasn't so nice. I wasn't going to be in it long, anyway, since I was starting on a run later that day. But I had to talk to a client on the Strip about some money issues first, and none of my clients are gonna say two words to me if I show up in travelling clothes.

So I run over to the Strip in this not-great suit, and I run up to where the guy's staying at the Tops, and—it's not early, exactly. Maybe, what, ten, eleven in the morning? Like I said, I overslept. So I run up and knock on their door, and the guy that answers isn't wearing anything but some ratty old robe. And get this—he's dressed like a damn hooker, and he says to me: "God, what happened to you? You look like you got caught in a brahmin stampede."

This guy, saying this to me! And his robe's probably over a hundred years old and probably belonged to some dead old lady. _And_ he owed me fifty caps. I wanted to tell him where he could shove his brahmin stampede, but...well... _[Sighs.]_ You've gotta make money, you know? You can't tell every asshole to shove it, much as you might like to. You do that, you're gonna find yourself without a dollar to your name. It's horrible. Some people treat you like dirt and you just have to smile and take it. I just wish people were a little nicer sometimes. We're all stuck in this hellhole together—you'd think we'd smile at each other a little more often.


	5. 3: Tom Alfero (Courier)

_Tom Alfero  
Courier_

_Tom Alfero works as an independent courier in the northern Core Region. After "getting his ass handed to him at the Mojave Express and in Vegas," he moved back west and started taking up messenger jobs on his own._

The most important thing in courier work is the shoes. The gun? Eh. I know a lot of soldier-types that would punch me in the face for this, but to me, a gun's a gun. If it shoots, there's not a lot that's special about it. But shoes? Oh, shoes'll make or break you as a courier. Or as anyone who walks around, really. I've seen some younger kids set off to walk to Reno or Vegas in these shitty boots, or worse, these flat things that are just a step above walking on pavement in your bare feet, and I just cringe and go, "Why? Why would you do that? You're not gonna make it a mile!" Greenhorn mistake.

Now see these? _[Alfero swings his foot up onto the diner table.]_ Now _these_ are the kind of shoes you need. They're made by this small place in San Francisco. I had to pay nearly a hundred and fifty bucks for them, but they've lasted me three times as long as the crap things I used to buy, and they've still got a good two months in them. I could walk to the moon and back in these boots and not even feel it. When I lay my head down at the end of the day, my feet ache a little, but they're just fine after a good night's sleep. You don't wake up exhausted and in pain before you even hit the road.

Shoes are what make a courier, not a gun. Anyone who's been working in this business for longer than a month or two will say the same thing.

_"I'm originally from San Francisco, but my dad and I started moving around a lot after my mom died when I was ten or eleven. My dad was the sort of guy who was never good at staying in one place—runs in the family, I guess. Ended up in Redding before I got restless and decided to strike out on my own. That was, oh, when I was sixteen, maybe. I was young. Stupid, too. Can't say I'm a lot smarter, really, but I'm not as much of an idiot. I've learned a few things wandering around._

_"Originally I was going to join up with the army, but right before I left home I got word that a good buddy of mine got killed in action. Shook me right off the military path. Considering what seems to be going on out east, I'd say that was a good thing. And I'm crap with a gun, anyway, so I wouldn't have been any good to anyone. Maybe I would've been a good clerk, but a soldier? Jesus. Can't imagine it."_

I think part of the reason I started doing courier work in the first place was because I was already walking around a lot. I was kind of a drifter when I first set out on my own. Went around, did odd jobs for people. Got in trouble. A lot of trouble, at times—I ran my mouth like nobody's business, but didn't have the punching skills to back it up. After a year or so of bouncing around from job to job, I was rolling out of this one small town when this lady came up to me and asked if I was going to...I don't remember where. Modoc, maybe. I didn't know where I was going, so I said, sure, I'm heading out that way.

And she says, "Well, if you take these letters and drop them off with so-and-so, I'll pay you fifty caps right now and you'll get another fifty from them." I was a stupid-ass kid with no money, so of course I'm all, "Oh, yeah, lady, I'll carry those letters for you! No problem!" I didn't have a clue where this town was but hey, yeah, I'll deliver your letters. I got lost no less than four times and I nearly got shot to death by some guy that lived in a cave, but I delivered those letters and came out of it a hundred and fifteen caps richer. Been a courier ever since.

Some couriers, they're just in it temporarily, just as a way to earn some quick caps. But me? I'm a lifer. I've worked a few other jobs, of course; I worked at a brahmin ranch right after I left home, then I was a bartender for a bit after I ran into some trouble and got scared off from courier work for a while, and several years ago I tried setting up shop in the Hub but that ended up not working out. I've always come back to running things for people. I don't know, there's just something about it that I like and that I'm good at. At this point, I think I'd be bored stiff in any other job.

A lot of my business actually comes from small towns on the outskirts of the bigger cities, or from people that live pretty far out from everything. I have some people I see regularly, some folks that are too old or too sick to really travel far on their own. I pick up food or water and such and bring it to them, run their mail to them every week. I know these people really well. A few of them even let me shack up with them for the night. Really nice people, all of them.

My other work comes from business people who need a letter or contract taken from here to there, a mom sending a package of something to her kid living off somewhere. Some jobs from a firm out of Sac-Town whose owner I know, which are kind of dangerous, because their packages mostly have money in them or sensitive information. Good pay, though. I've gotten a job from the NCR maybe once or twice in all the years I've been doing this—they've got their own people to run their stuff, and the things they run aren't the kinds of packages you want to be carrying around, anyway. Government stuff. Might as well paint a target on your back.

Lately, there's been talk of some sort of state-run courier service. But there's been talk of that for years, ever since I started as a courier. Personally, I don't think the government's going to make good on the rumors. It'd be too expensive, and with all the dust they're kicking up in the Mojave, they don't have cash to spare. Independent couriers are going to be here for a good while longer.

_So you're not worried about possibly being out of a job?_

I don't think there's anything to worry about, no. Not in my lifetime, anyway. Let those kids worry about it thirty, forty years from now. We'll probably be done with the war by then. _[Laughs.]_

It's not as hectic as it used to be. Back when I first started I was running up and down the Core Region, from the Boneyard to New Reno and back, doing these crazy deliveries on ridiculous schedules. Oh, I used to be very well known in the right circles. "Fastest feet in the west" was a name I heard if I walked into certain bars. But now I've got my steady routes up here in the north, and I like it. Whenever I run across an old buddy they laugh and say, "Hey, how's retirement treating you? How many steps between Redding and Modoc?" I see the same view every week or so, sure, but I've gotten to like the consistency. I need a bit of it as I get into my old age._[Laughs.]_ Forty four...jesus. Time flies.

Nowadays I'm seeing fewer and fewer of my old courier friends, getting news of their...well, y'know. The wastes are still dangerous, even to us old timers. _Especially_ to us old timers. You get cocky out there or start feeling too safe, you get a bullet to the head, or you get your arm ripped off or poisoned or something. I've had a few close calls, myself. This one time I was up near Sac-Town, somewhere near the 50-80 split, when I saw this gang coming down the road. Looked like a bunch of 80s, and well-armed, too. I didn't want any trouble and they were a ways off, so I figured I'd just duck out and hide somewhere along the road. Well...they caught sight of me right as I hopped the guardrail. Long story short, I spent six hours cowering in a shack while they were banging around trying to find me. Worse stuff happened in Vegas, if you can believe it. Never let it be said that the wasteland's been tamed.

_"I guess all the travelling around I did as a kid stuck with me, because I've never been able to just settle in any one place. There's been a few times where I've thought about getting a house somewhere, getting some place I could really call home, but...I don't know. It's just never worked out. Never really had a reason to, I guess—I travel so much that all my house would do is cost me money and gather dust. And I've never really had time to find anyone I'd like to settle down with, anyway. I'm sort of turned off to the whole idea of 'settling down,' at this point."_

Courier work is nothing special. Really. A lot of kids like to romanticize it, I think, especially kids from small towns where they don't get to see a lot of the world, but it's not very glamorous. The most glamorous my job ever was was when I was doing those crazy runs, and even then it wasn't all that glamorous to most people. In terms of my job, I'm a pair of legs with a bag slung across my back and that's about it. If it wasn't me, it'd be someone else.

Now, I don't necessarily mind that, but some people try to make me feel like shit about it. I just laugh at them. Who's the one that can cover twenty six miles on foot in a day and rest easy at night? Not any of those brahmin ranchers. Who's the one that's going to bring you those letters and packages that you need to make that big deal? Not some casino bigshot. So I just shake my head at people that think I'm not worth giving the time of day to. Who needs 'em?

It's hard work, but I enjoy the job. I'm not saving the world or anything, but I like what I do. I get to travel, get to see all sorts of things. I know the highways and roads like the back of my hand by now, and people respect that. It's nice to walk up to a house and have people come out and smile at you. Beats hiding from some raiders in a shack any day of the week.


	6. 4: Leslie Bernard (Debt Collector I)

_Leslie Bernard  
Regional Head of Operations, Collections Agency_

_Leslie works for Nash & Johnson Collections, a collections agency based in the Hub, and is head of the firm's operations in the Mojave. Her son is enlisted in the Army and has been stationed near Sac-Town for the past year._

I've been working in collections for about fifteen years. I was actually one of Nash & Johnson's accountants when they first formed. They started as a small collections office in the Hub, working with some of the smaller caravans that were based there. About a year after I was hired, we caught a lucky break when the Crimson Caravan started looking for a new firm to handle their debts. They hired us on right as their most recent upward swing started. We've grown with them.

I moved from accountant to supervisor in about four years. My official promotion was in '69, right when Nash opened its first office outside of the Hub in New Reno. I was sent as part of the management team to oversee the transition. I was thrilled for the opportunity—I was born and raised in the Hub, and while I love the city I'd always wanted to see more of the republic. On top of that, I was happy to be moving up. Being an accountant wasn't boring, exactly, but it wasn't exciting either. I was the head accountant in the firm at the time, which is just a step below the managerial positions, and I was looking for more of a challenge in my work. _[Laughs.]_ The promotion certainly took care of that. As a manager, when you walk into work every day you're not sure what you're going to do. You could have a slow, boring day where you don't have much to do, or the entire world could've come undone overnight and you're left to put it back together. I like that sort of challenge in my work.

I started off as a supervisor for the accounting crew, which meant most of my job consisted of me reviewing the reports the head accountant sent to me about the branch's expenses and finances, both internal and client-related, and making decisions based on those reports. Sometimes that meant closing a case that was taking up too much of our time with too little payoff, sometimes that meant upgrading a case so that more of our resources were focused on it, and sometimes that meant cutting back or expanding our branch's staff. I was also responsible for each accountant's performance and okaying their changes to the cases and accounts. If someone made a ten dollar mistake, that ten dollars would have come out of my paycheck. Same if it was a ten thousand dollar mistake. But my accountants had sharp eyes and sharper heads, so that was never a problem. In the five years I was there, we had one mistake. It was for three caps. That's amazing, for this business. That's practically unheard of. Like I said, great accountants.

I stayed in that position for about two years, then I was promoted to assistant branch manager, and, a year later, branch manager, which entailed about everything you'd think it would. Mostly more decisions and more report reading, only the reports were thicker and your decisions carried a lot more weight. It's more responsibility, but more reward—financially, of course, but career-wise, too. You can make an impact and really see it from up there. You can see growth much more than you can in the lower levels, where it's mostly just transfer orders and rumors.

Over the five years I was in New Reno we opened branches in a few other cities, like San Francisco and New California Republic, but the big move has been out east. We set up a branch in the Mojave in '74, right after the New Vegas Treaty was signed and formalized. I spearheaded a push to move out this way back in '72, once I started to see the potential in the area. The Mojave's a good market for collection agencies; we were getting inquiries from some of our clients about whether or not we offered collection services that far east all the way back in '71. It took a few years, but now we have a branch set up here in Primm, and I was named chief operations officer in the region, second only to the regional head. I took care of the day-to-day matters and advised the head about how we were doing, what we should set our sights on for the future. Then the regional head retired, and I was promoted to his job.

Contrary to what you might think, it's not all that different from being a branch manager, except for the fact that I get flooded with reports from collection services on top of accounting reports, and that I report straight to Nash and Johnson themselves. But it's a lot of the same work—making decisions, trying to see the future. Steering the firm in the way that I think will pay off for us in the long run. Out here, it's an entirely different environment than back west, and that means different factors to consider. We have the Strip to think about, the different political conflicts in the region, the different business interests to play to. I look at that. My branch manager takes care mostly of running the actual physical location; I deal with the imaginary and the intangible. But it's the same motions, a lot of the time. The only big difference is scale.

_[She pauses, takes a sip of water, and continues.]_

I'm good at my job, and I like it. I know there's a lot of reason for people in this business to not like their jobs. Honestly, I've had my share of reservations about it over the years, and still have some now, but at the end of the day I like what I do. I _really_ like what I do. I'm not going to try to make it pretty, or glamorous, because Nash & Johnson isn't a pretty or glamorous firm. We're debt collectors. We aren't monsters, and we aren't heartless—which are things I've been called several times. We're hired to perform a service, and we perform it with respect to both sides. That's what I tell people who side-eye me when I tell them what I do. People think it's blood money—it's not. Not for us, at least. I sleep easy at night.

_"My son Joseph is in the Army. He's wanted to enlist since he was about six or so. His father was a military man—a captain. He was killed in action. I've never been comfortable with Joseph wanting to follow in his father's footsteps like that, but as he got older...the light in his eyes when he talks about serving. I couldn't bring myself to stop him, and I doubt he'd listen to me if I did. I worry about him so much, sometimes, even though he's in a 'safe' area. Safer than the Mojave, anyway. In his letters, he says he's more worried about me than I am about him. Honestly, I don't know what to make of that..."_

Some recent legislation has put restrictions on what we can do to collect a debt, to protect the debtors. The Debt Collection Restraint Act. The less reputable agencies are grumbling about it, but honestly, the limits aren't all that restrictive for anyone who was already engaging in good practices. It's morbid, but there's a saying in this business—"a corpse doesn't pay." Unfortunately, there are people who are willing to go right up to the line on that one. It's sick, the things I've heard when talking to collectors. The second hand stories you get...

Personally, I'm glad to see something like the DCRA. I mean, it won't have any bite to it unless the NCR is willing to send people out to enforce it, but I like that this sort of groundwork is being set up for debtor protection. Up until now, there's been no supervision over this industry on the government's part whatsoever. Collectors could go to almost any lengths to collect their money, up to and including physical assault and what basically amounted to turning people into indentured servants. Almost all of the established collection firms didn't go that far, but there were some that did, and many of the "independent" debt collectors are known for being particularly brutal. Hopefully this new act will be enough to scare people off from those kinds of methods. Or at least punish them if they do.

On top of that, the act makes our job easier, as well. Now we have more legal steps we can take with debtors that refuse to pay, or that can't afford to pay. While we have clear lines drawn between what we can and can't do, we have more guidance and support from the government when we're working inside those lines. With some of the more aggressive debtors, we can even request assistance from local police or the Rangers. Granted, I'm...not entirely sure how I feel about a military division stepping into civil matters like these, but I'm also not out on the ground. I've talked about it with a few of our more "high-level" collectors—collectors that deal with debtors that owe quite a bit of money, or that have repeatedly refused to engage with us on any level but a hostile one—and their reactions have ranged from indifferent to happy. Rangers are the last resort, of course, but I think a lot of collectors take comfort in knowing they've got that level of support if they really need it. At least, they have that level in theory. Like I said, we'll see how all this actually works in practice.

I know a lot of the more brutal collectors have used the government's distance from private debt collection as an excuse for why they do some of the things they do, and while I don't agree with the lengths they go to, I do think that the lack of government involvement has been a problem for a long time. On both sides. The DCRA protects us and protects the debtors in equal measures—I'm very excited to see how it all pans out.

_What do you think of the debtors?_

For all the years that I've been working at Nash, I've never been able to see them in a bad light. I know that probably sounds rich, coming from me in my position, but I don't. Not many people at the agency do, or if they do they keep it out of their work. These people aren't statistics, or blank faces, they're _humans._ They've made mistakes—okay. We get it. We try and work with them, set up payment plans and generally be relatively flexible. Other firms don't do that. Independent collectors definitely don't do that.

Everyone at Nash & Johnson is committed to being humane while also doing our jobs and doing them well. We treat people like people. I like to think it's one of the reasons we're the most successful collections agency in the NCR.


	7. 5: Shu Leung (Debt Collector II)

_Shu Leung  
Debt Collector_

_Shu Leung is a debt collector who also works for Nash & Johnson. She is one of the firm's "low level" debt collectors, who are sent out to talk to people who haven't responded to letters about their debt or who don't have a set or known address. "Officially, we're referred to as 'initial contact.' As in, we make initial physical contact with people." Originally from the Boneyard, she works primarily in the southern part of the Core Region._

I haven't been in the debt collection business all that long. I was hired about six months ago. Before this, I was a bounty hunter for two years, and before that I was involved with the Followers. I took up this job mostly because of money—bounty hunting just wasn't paying the bills and getting food in my mouth. I was passing through the Hub and happened to catch sight of a "help wanted" sign on a door. Stepped in, talked to this lady for a while, and they sent me on a trial run with one of their more experienced collectors. Probably should've just declined the job after that run, but...y'know. The money was good, and everyone seemed impressed when I came back. So I took the job.

_"I thought the Followers was going to be where I was for life, but I ended up leaving after four years because they just weren't for me. I mean, they do great stuff, and I admire all the people that stick with them, but it was a little stagnant for me, personally. I've never been interested in the doctor stuff and probably wouldn't have made the cut for the school anyway, so I was stuck between __being a scribe and a research assistant. I joined them because I really wanted to make a difference in the wasteland, and here I was copying passages out of books and watching experiments. Didn't feel like I was really doing anything meaningful._

_I appreciate everything they did for me, and I did learn a hell of a lot about pretty much everything while I was with them, but I figured out that I wasn't meshing well and decided to just break off before I started being more of a hindrance than a help."_

Collecting's not a particularly straining job, all things considered. I think most people think of collecting as a really rough 'n tough job—y'know, go out and beat people up and take their money. But it's not like that. At least not at the lower level, where I am. Most of my time's spent travelling from place to place, tracking down leads on where so-and-so lives. Then knocking on doors and talking to people. I spend very little of my time actually collecting any payments, and when I do, the money's never in my hands for very long. I mean, it's good, and I'm glad that I'm not a high level collector, really. They're the ones that get in fights. I don't fight, not really...only when there's not another way out. _[Laughs weakly.]_ One of the reasons I wasn't a very good bounty hunter.

Some of the scuzzier people I've met—outside of the job, not debtors—have asked me if I ever skim money off the payments, ever report a smaller payment than I get. I mean, some of the debtors ask me that, too, but it's not a business proposition like it is from the skeezy people, it's a "you're taking my money and I want to make sure you're not gonna run off and blow it on booze and chems" question. I would never, not in a million years, steal that money. I'm not a scumbag, and anyways they'd catch me as I was slipping it in my pocket. I swear, when it comes to money Nash & Johnson runs a tighter ship than the government. They keep track of every cap. Every single one. No way anyone who wasn't some sort of accounting genius would be able to steal anything from them without them knowing. It's admirable, in a way. You have to respect that sort of efficiency and thoroughness, even if it's not really pointed in the right direction.

_What do you think about the DCRA?_

The what?

_The Debt Collection Restraint Act?_

Oh. Is that that new law that they passed? I haven't heard the name of it before now, so...well, honestly, I haven't heard much about it at all. My handler at HQ's mentioned it in passing a few times, but nothing in detail...apparently it doesn't go into effect until next year, anyway. From what little I've heard, though, I like it. I like the idea of it. I've heard horror stories about collectors doing some really, _really_ bad stuff to debtors to get them to pay. People working on commission or whatever, you know, the desperate sort, apparently they're not adverse to breaking a few bones. Or worse. I'm glad there's going to be hard-set limits and punishments. I hope the NCR really follows through with enforcing it. I'll have to look into it more...

_"When I was a kid I wanted to be a superhero, like you see in some of the pre-War magazines and holovids. I wanted to go out and fight evil, beat down bad guys and throw 'em in jail and everything. My mom made me this cape and I used to wear it everywhere, all the time. I grew up a little and realized things weren't as cut and dry as they are in comic books, but I never stopped wanting to take down bad guys. Kind of a far cry from what I'm doing now."_

I mean...I don't like my job, no. There's days when I really hate it. Some of these people...you can just tell they've seen bad shit, been through bad times. And here I am, knocking on their door—when they _have_ a door—and telling them, "hey, you need to pay this money." They don't have that money. Sometimes it's because they were irresponsible and lost it all, or didn't plan well, but sometimes it's just because...they don't have any money. And it's not their fault, it's just because they're poor. Maybe they lost their job, maybe they got hurt and couldn't work, and so they got a loan or they got something on credit and they knew they couldn't pay it back, but it was go into debt or die right then. If they had money to pay this I wouldn't be knocking on their door.

And these people look at me and sometimes they scream and holler and shout and all, saying "well, I'm not gonna pay this because blah blah blah," but a lot of the time they just sorta...nod, or tell me they know, that I'm not the first person to knock on their door about this. Sometimes they cry. That's the worst, when they cry, because I want to comfort them—say "it's okay, it's alright, just because you owe this money doesn't mean you're bad or anything, you're still a person, just a person in a tight bind," because I think a lot of collectors and agencies want to make debtors feel like they're not even worth the air they breathe. But at the same time, I can't, because I've got to ride them about this money because the company's paying my bills and... _[She pauses for a moment, wiping away tears and steadying her breathing.]_

I don't get the collectors that can just see them all as blank faces or whatever they tell themselves to get through the day. They're not blank faces. They're people. Real, live people, people that've seen things and felt things and have personalities and memories and dreams and fears and...I'm not cut out for this at all. I can't help but see people as people, even if they're in a bad situation, even if they've done bad stuff. I wonder about their parents. What would they say? Do they have family that knows about this debt? The worst visits are when the person has a family, when their wife or kid comes to the door. What do you say to them? Sometimes they don't even know. "He owes what? She owes what?" It shouldn't be a stranger breaking that news to them.

I go home or wherever I'm staying and lay down and can't go to sleep because I just think about this. All the time, I think about what I do, about the things I do to people. I'm not cut out for this at all.


End file.
